I'll Share With You My Heartbeat

thirty

Lennon wanted this wound in particular to stay with him forever. Or maybe he just wanted everything he associated it with to stay intact— everyone he associated it with.

It was four in the morning. The world had fallen into slumber.

He ran his index finger along the rough ridges of the healing cut, flashbacks playing in his head of how gently the ravenhead had patched him back up that night. How protective he had been. It's been a long time since Lennon had felt protected.

Lost in his daydream, the chestnut boy began picking at his arm, scratching subconsciously at the scabs as he stared blankly at his laptop screen. He was supposed to be typing away at his college essays, but god did this ghost manage to take up every open space in his mind.

"Stop that."

Lennon physically jumped, swiveling around in his wheely chair to see the ravenhead standing under the doorframe to his study room. How did he not sense him?

"It'll never heal if you keep picking at it," Kieran said matter-of-factly, letting Socks leap out of his arms.

Eyebrows pinching together, the chestnut turned back around instantly, fingers flying to his keyboard to disguise the heartache in his chest.

"Len."

The nickname made him shrink in his seat.

"Lennon?"

A chill pricked at the back of his neck like a needle. Lennon inhaled sharply when he realized Kieran had circled his arms around his upper body and hooked his chin over his shoulder to get a better look at his face.

The chestnut boy shook him off easily. "I'm doing work," he said blandly. He tried to sound as convincing as possible.

Kieran looked at the screen. "You've been typing random incoherent words for the past minute."

Lennon snapped his laptop shut, lifting his feet off the ground to tuck his knees into his chest and bury his face in his arms. He kept his back towards Kieran, face burning with humiliation.

The ravenhead looked through the doorway and across the hallway into the bedroom. The bed was exactly the way he left it.

"Lennon." He frowned. "Have you slept at all?"

"Of course I did," the boy huffed into his sleeve, body still turned towards his desk, "I slept great."

Suddenly he felt the chair beneath him move and he didn't have to open his eyes to know Kieran had spun him around to face him.

"Hey. Look at me."

Lennon gritted his teeth and raised his head slowly, meeting the ravenhead's gaze and watching the harshness in his eyes drain into worry.

Kieran cradled the boy's face with uttermost care despite being physically incapable of hurting him anyway. "Your eyes are droopy," he examined. Then he scanned the studio space, taking in the empty mug with coffee stains on the desk and the photographs littered across the floor. "Don't lie to me."

"I wasn't—"

"What have you been up to all night, Len?"

The chestnut boy sighed, giving in as he raked his hand through his untidy curls. "Looking at my comfort pictures."

"Your comfort pictures," Kieran repeated, amused. The luminescence of Lennon's desk lamp traveled through his transparent skin, but it made him glow anyway.

Open shoeboxes were dispersed across the hardwood floor, four pictures in particular separated from the rest.

Cherry blossoms.

The girl— Precious in front of an ice cream stand with her tongue out.

A high school graduation photo with two adults by his side— presumably his parents.

"You look like them," the ravenhead whispered before letting his eyes trail towards the last photo.

He recognized this one. The theater. The one Lennon took of him. Yet not a trace of him could be found.

"When did you print this one out?" Kieran asked, tucking his thumb into his trouser pocket and looking at the chestnut boy.

"During that four-day nap you took on my bed." Lennon tutted, rolling his eyes.

Kieran couldn't tell if he was being playful or passive aggressive.

The ravenhead crouched in front of him, holding the arm of the chair. "I'm sorry I left the way I did earlier," he murmured, "I shouldn't have."

Lennon placed his feet down and leaned forward, minimizing the space between them. "Then why did you?"

"I woke up very confused— like an entirely different person, probably because I regained this big part of me that's been absent till now and it threw me off," Kieran explained, trying not to be bothered by how close they were now, "And whenever I'm confused, my first instinct is to go to Autumn."

"Your friend."

"My friend," he confirmed, "They always know the answers. What to do. Where to go. Maybe I'm a little too reliant on them sometimes, but what can I do? I'm foreign to this world."

"You were rambling about next steps when you woke up," Lennon said thoughtfully.

"I was." Kieran seized the chestnut boy's shoulders even though his fingers went right through his skin. "Len, believe me— it wasn't my intention to hurt you."

The chestnut boy gazed downward. "I felt so used when you left, Kier. So unimportant. I'm afraid I'll always feel that way knowing that you will walk out eventually, permanently."

Kieran shook his head. "Don't say it like that—"

"But that's exactly what it is," Lennon interjected, blinking rapidly.

"Oh darling darling..." The ravenhead snatched a tissue from the tissue box and dabbed at the boy's teary eyes.

"I'm not crying!" Lennon refused, turning his head in the other direction.

The ravenhead's eyes widened. The same boy who encouraged him to own his vulnerability was hiding his tears behind his palms. Since when did Lennon start recoiling from the ones who cared for him the most?

Kieran clenched his jaw, eyes darting towards one of Lennon's comfort photographs that lay on the floor and finding one in particular.

Since her.

It was like how Autumn's absence of a family destroyed their permanent— she destroyed Lennon's.

Understanding, Kieran felt his heart expand and contract all at once— he was leaving him the same way she did, and Lennon was protecting himself the way he wished he did before he was left heartbroken.

But would you allow him to hurt a thousand times for you?

In this room where they first met, the same avalanche of photos he had caused. Was it all doomed from the start? All this chasing just to end up at the starting line again?

Lennon wrapped his arms around himself, curling into a ball. It made the ravenhead's heart ache. How do you comfort someone whose love language is touch without laying a single finger on him? How do you promise him that you did not leave because you didn't love him?

No. Kieran stood to his full height. There are other ways.

"Len, darling."

The chestnut boy blinked uncertainly at the new nickname and Kieran's outstretched hand.

"Come with me. Please. I'll prove to you just how much you mean to me."

Lennon stared at him with puffy eyes, brows lifted just barely.

"Let the real Kieran, both old and new, show you just how much you mean to him."